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 Eyes Shedding—that’s what they called it. Those months of power shortages when I was nine and woke to splintered electricity, forced blindness, the dark tasting of rust and stone pressing itself against the house. My fingers scraped screens, wooden doorways, palms ribbed with their design and permanence looking for bends in the smooth line of wall, for stars on the steel plate of night, the silver against black. When I was born, my eyes swelled from the hard birth, shunned light— there was fear of scarring, fear of blindness. My mother kept watch for a week, willing the tight lids open. As a child, I saw my great-aunt’s cataract eyes grayed by age as beautiful—not seeing them for what they were: eyes drowning themselves, weakening muscles crystallized, dulled by misplaced clouds. It was the silence: no fan, no fluorescent hum from the hallway, the absence of sound and shadow that woke me, alone— the only sleepwalker, nightwalker, ghost in the house.We send money every fall to Calcutta, buying eyes for those who cannot see—the dark bruise of sight settling the shadows. Somewhere an iris, a pupil, a lens placed in my name. ...

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